Chapter 2
T
he car lurched, and Dan Morgan braced himself against the trunk lid. A sliver of light filtered into the sweltering darkness where an accident had opened up a crack between the lid and the body of the decrepit old Dodge. Morgan looked out from time to time, but all he got was the alternating blue and green of sky and canopy.
It got old fast.
He blinked and slapped his face against the drowsiness that permeated him. Wiping sweat from his brow, he shifted his weight again, trying and again failing to avoid a bulge that had been digging into his back for the entire ride.
At the end of said ride would be Jorge Saavedra, head of the cartel that bore his name. Well, it was either that or violent death. The suspense made the ride that much more unpleasant.
Being stuck for two hours in the hot trunk of a car driving north out of Cartagena, Colombia, on a pothole-pocked highway, possibly on the way to his death, really gave a man time to think about his life choices.
Diana Bloch hailed him on his comm, a hidden, skin-toned plug that went in his ear that communicated with a transmitter hidden in a button on his khakis. The beep lasted about half a second, followed by her voice. “Checking in. We still have a lock on your position. The chopper's twenty miles behind you.”
Morgan knocked twice on the car's metal frame, giving the wordless signal that he had understood the message. It was a bumpy ride, and no one inside the car would notice.
“Copy that.”
He shifted his weight again and was wondering how much longer it would be when he felt the tug of deceleration, pulling him toward the seat back. He braced himself until the car came to a complete stop. A voice outside put him on high alert. Men argued in heated Spanish, too muffled for him to make out anything.
No more than a minute later, the trunk opened to a figure silhouetted against the harsh light of day. Fresh air poured in, fat lot of good that did on such a muggy, hot day.
Morgan squinted, and his eyes adjusted enough for him to make out a bored-looking uniformed policeman, whose eyes widened in surprise upon seeing him there, but glazed over again just as fast. He was getting paid not to make Morgan his problem, and he wasn't going to let curiosity get in the way of profit.
He slammed the trunk door down. Morgan's ears popped. With a word from the officer, the car was moving again.
It was about twenty minutes before Morgan felt the deceleration again, this time followed by a left turn onto a local road. The car halted, and Morgan heard the whir of the motor of an electric gate. The car eased forward with a rumble of tires moving over cobblestone before coming to a final stop. The car doors opened and then the trunk lid, and the first thing Morgan saw was the ugly mug of Paco Ruiz grinning down at him.
“We are here,
gringo
.”
Morgan ignored the hand Paco held out and instead braced himself against the rim of the trunk to hop onto the cobblestone, pulling behind him the button-down shirt he'd brought along for the meeting. He stretched out his aching limbs, cracking his neck and taking a moment to survey their surroundings. The driveway made a wide circle by the side entrance to the Saavedra villa, at the end of a mile-long road from the outside gate. A field of coconut trees stretched to either side as far as the eye could see. The 1987 metallic-blue Chevy Silverado carrying the crate was parked behind them. The two men who had driven in it, plus the three others who were in the carâcocky young assholes, all tattoos, gold chains, and shaved headsâwere joshing each other and laughing.
Morgan didn't get much of a look at the house, but he could tell that even for a mansion it was huge, all colonnades and white walls gleaming in the early morning sun, the best in contemporary-rustic taste that blood money could buy.
Paco showed his two gold teeth again. He had one of those faces that invited an uppercut to the jaw. “I hope the ride was not so bad.”
“Beats flying coach.”
Paco was a greasy bastard, hair slicked back, forehead pocked with beads of sweat, shirt with at least two more buttons undone than was necessary, baring a hairy chest. He wore his two custom pearl-handled Magnum .50 Cal Desert Eagles on side holsters, cowboy style. Never mind that it was maybe the most vulnerable way to carry a gun. It made him look
badass
.
“The boss takes his security very seriously. He does not want outsiders to know where he lives.”
Of course, a bag over his head would've done the job. But Saavedra wanted to flex his muscles, showing that he was powerful enough that men would come to him in the trunk of a car if he demanded it. It was the first volley in their negotiations.
Two security guards in pastel suit jackets and tieless button-down shirts came out of a service entrance, one wielding a metal detector wand in one hand and a handy little appliance for detecting RF signals in the other. The detector was designed to sniff out bugs and happened to suffer from a fatal flaw: it couldn't detect anything that wasn't turned on. Pretending to scratch, Morgan clicked the button that held his transponder once to shut it off. His earpiece emitted a demoralized beep acknowledging the shutdown.
The guard scanned him with the wand first.
The wand warbled as it passed over his crotch. “Don't enjoy it too much.” The guard made no sign that he'd understood. Next, he scanned Morgan with the RF detector, which didn't make a sound.
“
Está limpio
.”
“All right, Señor Bevelacqua,” said the other guard. “Come with me please.” To Paco: “
Tú también
.”
The guard ushered the two of them inside through the service entrance (another attempt to put Morgan in his place), past an industrial kitchen where women in hairnets plucked chickens and stirred vats of broth fragrant with spice to the sound of salsa music. They crossed a swinging door into a living room appointed with rustic hardwood furniture. A uniformed maid laid out a silver tray of coffee and water for them.
Excusing himself, Morgan ducked into a bathroom, where he clicked the button again to turn on the radio transmitter. The earpiece chirped.
“Contact reestablished,” came Bloch's voice. “Are you in Saavedra's compound?”
“I'm in.” Morgan took off his T-shirt and wiped as much sweat as the fabric could handle from his hairy chest and his back.
“The chopper's holding, two minutes away. Let's try to avoid having to call it in.”
“I'll do my best.” He ran his fingers to straighten out his thick black hair and then along his mustache and goatee. Then he pulled the light blue button-down over his solid muscular frame. His pants still had a caramel-colored grease stain from the trunk of the car, but there was nothing to be done about that.
Morgan walked back out into the living room and sat in the worn leather safari chair. “
Muy guapo
,” Paco said, then leaned forward and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “When we go in, don't forget that with Señor Saavedra the most important thing is to show respect. Avoid eye contact, don't raise your voice, and
por joder
don't laugh. If he thinks you disrespect him, they find both our skins nailed to a bus stop in Cartagena. I don't think that jaw would be so handsome if it was not attached to any bones.”
Having made his point, Paco leaned back and whistled some damn song for the fifteen minutes it took a secretary to come and whisper in his ear. “Come on,” he said. “Saavedra is ready to see us.”
The secretary opened a set of rough-hewn doors to a spacious office whose broad bay windows opened up to a palm-framed sea, admitting the sound of the surf and the caws of seagulls outside. Flanked by two uniformed bodyguards was Saavedra, double-chinned, sporting a thick head of near-white hair and a mustache to match, in an eggshell suit over a light pink shirt and a bolo tie, sitting in a high-backed leather chair, his own little throne in his own little kingdom, sipping tequila from a whiskey glass.
He did not acknowledge Morgan. “
Quién es?
” he asked Paco instead.
“
El hombre de las armas, señor
,” said Paco, head bowed in deference. They had an exchange in low tones, of which Morgan caught only a word here and there. Then Saavedra turned to face him.
“So, Señor Bevelacqua.” He hit a palm against his desk with enthusiasm. “Please, please,
siéntate
.”
Morgan sat on one of the wicker armchairs across the desk from the drug lord.
“Quite a mouthful, your name.” Saavedra removed a hand-rolled cigarette from a caseâsilver inlaid with gold. “You say you have guns for me?”
Showtime.
“I have a supplier in Eastern Europe sitting on a small mountain of hardware. I'm talking Kalashnikovs, submachine guns, handguns, RPGs, grenades.” He counted off each one on his fingers as he listed them. “He's desperate to unload, which means I can get you a price on it nobody is going to beat.”
Saavedra sat back on his chair with a creak and set two polished wingtips on the desk. “You have my attention.”
“It's worth more than your attention. This is the offer of a lifetime. But there is a catch.”
Saavedra lit the cigarette and took a deep drag. His voice went deep as he exhaled smoke. “Paco tells me you don't have a transporter.”
“Not in the region, no. Building up those kinds of connections takes time I do not have.”
Morgan tensed as he watched for Saavedra's reaction. The whole game pivoted on this point.
The cartel boss sipped at his tequila. “And what do you think I should do about it?”
He was trying to throw Morgan off with his skepticism, by asking questions he damn well knew the answer to. “What I told Paco. And I'm sure he told you. I'd like to arrange a meeting with your logistics people and work out a deal to get the guns into the country.”
“Maybe we can do that, or maybe not.” Saavedra was acting aloof, like a cat. “What have you got?”
Morgan looked at Paco and nodded toward Saavedra. Paco pulled a folded-up sheet of paper from his back pants pocket and smoothed it out with his hands on the desk. Then he slid it across to Saavedra.
“That's everything,” Morgan said. “A full list.”
Saavedra held up a pair of gold-framed reading glasses as he scanned its contents. Then he tossed it on his desk. “I'm interested in the rifles and the explosives. That is all.”
“That's not a catalog,” said Morgan, leaning forward in his chair and resting an elbow on the desk. “It's a package deal. All or nothing.”
Saavedra stared back at Morgan with fire in his eyes. Paco squirmed at Morgan's defiance. He was a lackey. He would never understand. But Morgan knew what men like Saavedra respected.
The boss puffed at the cigarette without breaking eye contact. “You are wasting my time.”
“I saw what your men carry,” said Morgan. “Your close lieutenants might have their fancy weapons, but your foot soldiers carry junk. And I know the other cartels are champing at the bit to move into your territory. You need better hardware. You need what I have.”
“I don't need anything.” He sipped his tequila with one hand, waving a dismissive gesture with the cigarette. “Men who forget that live to regret it. What's your price?”
Morgan stood, wrote a figure down on the list with Saavedra's Mont Blanc, and slid it back across, leaning forward and resting his hands on the desk.
Saavedra laughed, his porcine face going red, his double chin going triple. He crossed out the figure and replaced it with another, closer to half what Morgan had proposed.
“No good,” said Morgan. “I'd be better off going to the Sudanese warlords at this price.”
Saavedra crossed it out again and pushed it up another twenty percent. “Final offer.”
“I'll take that without the handguns.”
Saavedra raised an eyebrow. “What about that package deal story?”
“You pay this, you don't get handguns. I'll take my chances trying to find another buyer for those.”
“I don't like your bullshit, Señor Bevelacqua.” He crossed out the figure and wrote one a quarter lower. “This is my price now.”
Morgan balled his hand into a fist and cast a glance at the bodyguards trying to look tough with scowls on their faces. If he let that slide, Saavedra would own the negotiation and Morgan wouldn't get what he was really after: face time with his smuggler.
Saavedra's lips curled into a victorious sneer. This couldn't stand.
Morgan swept his hand across the desk, knocking the glass of tequila from the table, sending it flying to shatter on the floor along with a stack of papers and a crystal ashtray. Paco gasped. The bodyguards' hands moved to their holsters.
Saavedra held up a hand, and they backed down. “You play a dangerous game.”
“Don't screw with me. You and I both know my initial offer was a bargain even undelivered. Now can we make a goddamn deal?”
The bodyguards watched Saavedra's hand. Outside, seagulls shrieked.
Saavedra lowered his arm and wrote a new figure. The highest one yet, some ten percent below asking. “Will this do then?”
Morgan sat down and crossed his legs. “I think we can do business.”
Saavedra addressed one of his bodyguards. “
Llame el Senõr White
.” He then stood up, took another glass from a leather-bound tray on a buffet table and poured himself another drink. “If Señor Bevelacqua will kindly agree not to smash it, might I offer you a glass? It is very smooth. Goes down like honey.” Saavedra puckered his lips for emphasis.